June brought the first days of summer to Chicago, the city reveling 12 hours of pure sunshine a day, the skies crystal blue without any hints of clouds. Unfortunately with the temperatures and the humidity rising, the lunatics seemed to leave their hiding places and the crime rate rose simultaneously, leaving Erin and Jay very little time to enjoy their family life because most days he worked overtime or even the whole night and one day Erin had found herself calling Carol for the first time and asking whether Emmy could stay with her until the evening as a case required Intelligence to be on the scene in full force. Of course Carol had happily agreed, this woman was a saint to say the least, but she'd nonetheless never felt as bad in her life than when she'd picked her daughter up in the evening after a full 12-hours workday, Jay and the rest of the unit not even close to call it a day, and she'd promised herself to let this be the exception. As this had been one of the cases that needed to be solved at all costs, she'd worked for four days in a row, just not as late the other three days, and she couldn't help but feel guilty for somehow abandoning her child and not being there for her enough. She'd been incredibly relieved when the case was wrapped successfully after four exhausting days and she's been back to work her regular hours and days ever since, trying to spend as much time as possible with her baby girl to somehow make up for the days she'd barely seen her.
Things were even worse for Jay because other than seeing Emilia in the morning and late at night when he came home and could only give the sleeping baby a kiss for goodnight or when she was still in the bullpen with Erin one morning a week, he hadn't had many opportunities to spend time with his daughter as he'd even worked through the weekends for the past two weeks since the beginning of June. Literally the moment they'd finished their talk about happiness back then, Hank had called him to inform him that they had a new crime and ever since then Jay has barely had a moment to breathe, neither to spend with his daughter. Erin knew this was preying on him. He didn't want to be this kind of dad who only saw his child in the morning and late at night. It reminded him too much of his own father, how he'd never been there during his childhood. But his job didn't leave him a choice, this was what he'd promised the moment he became a cop. To protect this city, to make it a better place and to do everything for it.
He's been in a bad mood quite often these last two weeks and was generally overworked and exhausted, Erin could see it in his eyes, in his body language and his behavior. He barely ever complained though, this just wasn't him. He'd gone through worse, through longer periods of absolute exhaustion when he was on duty, fighting for his country far away from home, so he just did his job now as well and he did it as extraordinary as always.
Nonetheless Erin was thankful that Hank had seemed to recognize that his best sniper needed to catch a break without her saying a thing to him and had therefore given him the weekend off, no matter how many criminals would decide to commit a crime within the next few days. They would want to go to the park tomorrow and have a picnic there with Will, Natalie and Owen and just simply relax, trying to forget the rush of the previous weeks and enjoy some very needed family downtime. And maybe on Sunday they would start to change some things in their new house by painting the rooms they already had some ideas for, like the nursery and the master bedroom.
Unfortunately it was only Friday evening now and like so often within the last two weeks Erin and Emilia were alone, waiting for Jay to come home, hopefully before midnight today, so at least Erin could spend some time outside of work with him. Some time as in five or ten minutes before they would fall asleep.
After picking her daughter up from Carol earlier, she had already done the grocery shopping so they didn't have to do it on their free weekend, had cleaned the bathroom and changed the sheets in the bedroom and had then ended the day with taking a stroll with Emilia in the nightfall of this summerly day. Now she was sunken into the cushions of the couch, the TV running in the background, not for her entertainment but more for interrupting the silence in the living room, and Emilia was drifting to sleep on her chest, her baby's head tucked under her chin so she could give her soft kisses all the time and inhale her sweet scent. When she couldn't cuddle with Jay in the evening these days, she could at least cuddle with her baby but she wanted nothing more than to cuddle with the both of them together because it's been a while and she missed it more than anything else.
